I was awake at about 2 AM the night we finally got thirteen people at the Inn. The change hadn't happened yet, and really, I don't understand how anyone who knows what's about to happen to them is capable of sleeping through it. I wasn't even looking at my phone. Something felt dirty about doomscrolling while waiting for something with this much significance. Instead I just sat there, cross-legged and staring at the wall in some kind of meditative pose as if meditation's something I actually know anything about. But when my phone buzzed, I picked it up anyway.
It was Heather, calling from the room next door. Physically visiting was out of the question for fear of ending up in the wrong bodies.
"Hey, hey Isaac, you're still up, right?" Sara's voice sounded like she'd been drinking. The last year's keyed me into a lot of the tells.
"Yeah? You okay?"
"Y-yeah. I'm fine. Totally." I think she sniffled. "I want you to give me one good reason I shouldn't run away right now."
"What?"
"Like. Like from the Inn. Away from here. Before... y'know."
"You're not actually going to--"
"Tell me."
"Well." I took a deep breath. "You'd ruin everything for Sara. You know that. And for Ainsley, and for me and everyone else at the Inn right now if we can't get get someone to take your body on short notice, and it, it's wrong, you know--"
"I know!" Heather sputtered. "I know I know I know I know I know!!! I'd be horrible, a-a monster, it fucks everything up forever, I know. I don't need you to tell me that. 'Cept for how I just did, I guess." She found it in herself to laugh a bit at her own joke.
"So why--"
"I wasn't planning on it when we came in here. To Maine. I mean, Marvin put you through all that crap and he still handed over your body, and I'm not gonna be worse than him, right? But it's- it's different when you know it's coming for real, the gun's aimed at your head and you know you're gonna wake up sick and it's all gonna hit you all at once and I. I can't stop thinking about it! It's a whole, fight-or-flight, thing. God. Does this happen to everyone here who knows they're about to get a couple decades older and they're all too ashamed to admit it or did I just screw up my life that bad!?"
"It's gonna be okay," I said, after a lengthy pause in which I failed to come up with anything besides a platitude. I didn't really believe it. I picked that one up from Ainsley's friends and I don't know if they believed it either.
"Pfft. Sure." She sniffled some more. "Y'know? This was the best year I've had since, since... I don't even wanna think about it. I got to be bright and fun and cool and risky and energetic and I stole it all from someone else!! And I feel terrible about it, but, I won the Inn, Isaac. So many people get completely ruined by this place but I won, and if I were more of a piece of shit than I am I just never would've come back here. I don't have anything to come back to, I was, I am this warped, bitter shell and my kids don't want anything to do with me 'cause I ruined that too and I'm on track to die sad. I see it coming. And now I'm in this body that wants to live but I'm going back, by choice, 'cause if I don't ignore everything in me screaming to run away I'll never be able to sleep at night again."
I didn't know what to say. I've never been any good at comforting someone who's just venting and doesn't need any actual advice I'm capable of giving. Especially over the phone, where I can't use my body language. This kind of thing happened to me a lot with Ainsley's friends and I always felt like I was doing something wrong, more so than usual. I think I kind of suck at being a girl. And what does anyone even say here? I wasn't about to get thirty years older, I couldn't go "that's just how life is" or something worse. I can't understand where she's coming from, not really. Or should I have congratulated her for not doing one of the worst things anyone can possibly do to a person?
"It'll be okay," I sighed. Was that really the best I could think of? "Just... Just stay here. We can keep talking. If that helps."
"Wow, really? You oughta be a therapist." Heather started snickering before she abruptly cut herself off. "Actually, no, no, that was cruel. I dumped all that on you and I-- You can tell I'm a cruel person since that's the first thing I thought to say. Like, wow, what a bitch! I-I'm sorry. Really."
"Heather, I said this when I first met you, and I'll say it again-- I've had worse roommates."
"Heh." Her laugh didn't sound conflicted that time. I imagined Sara smiling to herself. Heather didn't hang up, but the line stayed quiet long enough for me to slip back into my own thoughts (and maybe even emotional exhaustion-induced sleep) before she broke the silence again.
"Am I really the only one who thought about what it'd be like if we didn't go back?"
Not this again. "Huh?"
"I mean. You've never seemed like you got much going on in your life, I guess? You complained about Ainsley's life a lot but I never really heard you say much about stuff you miss, besides the lower expectations. And your plants."
"So because I'm kind of pathetic, you think spending the rest of my life pretending to be a sorority girl would be an improvement?"
"If it was permanent, you wouldn't have to. That's the thing. You could ditch her friends and do whatever you want. Hang out with me and Sara's friends, maybe. I could tell you're kinda jealous."
"Are you kidding? You saw exactly what happened that time you dragged me to a concert and-- no." I'm never telling her she's vaguely right about that last part, but everything else about that spiel was out of line. "No. Back up. Did I think about what I'd do if I were stuck and had to like, cope with it? A little. But it was never a-- I can do whatever I want and not have to put up with someone else's friends in my own body! And as a bonus, I get to see my parents again. And, y'know, for someone who's spent the last year talking about how I don't appreciate my life enough, you're being incredibly cavalier about the idea of me throwing away five years of my twenties. You remember I'm really 21, right?"
That got her quiet again for a little while.
"Yeah. Okay, I-I shouldn't have-- I guess it was just, part of the fantasy I made for myself which I hate that I have about getting to stay but-- Sorry." Heather sighed. "I'd just miss having you around if it was only me who stayed."
"You really think that?"
"Yeah. You're on my mind, kiddo. You know, during that whole thing where you just threw yourself into being Ainsley, I just, I was really worried about you. I don't know if I ever properly told you that. And that's the other reason I asked about if you'd thought about what it'd be like to stay. I just... the way you tried so hard to be someone else, I don't know if someone who thinks they're leaving a lot behind would've been able to do that. So, I... I worry. That's all."
"...I care about you, too," I said after a while. "After all that, it'd be weird not to. You've helped me a lot. So, yeah. Though I'm not about to pretend you do were always the best roommate."
"Oh honey, you don't gotta, I know." Heather laughed again, full and genuine. "You know, sometimes you remind me so much of my Violet, before she-- oh shit I think I see--"
She hung up. I felt it, too.
I don't know if it happens the same way for everyone, but in my case the first sign was the hair, thickening, darkening, everywhere. I'd always had a lot of body hair, and after a year without it it felt only more so, great black vines breaking through my skin as it went subtly paler. Even on my face, which was a surprise-- I always kept myself clean-shaven, and Marvin didn't have a beard when I saw him two months ago. I barely even registered my head hair slowly retreating into my skull despite that being a far more blatant violation of the laws of physics. For a little while, I had the odd sensation of full breasts entirely covered in coarse chest hair (God, did I always have that much?) before the rest of my body began to catch up. Every second I inflated a little more, grew more rigid, and I hate that this is the least uncomfortably phallic terminology I could come up with to describe a masculinizing torso. My hands doubled in size. To my surprise a regrowing penis was far overshadowed by how I felt just above it, the entire abdomen churning inside or less frequently descending. My breath quickened until well after the changes subsided.
It's not me, in the selfie camera. It's not Isaac Strauss, not anything like the way I left him. This man has a full beard and a tight haircut and actual muscle and is missing a year's worth of babyface. He looks like he belongs somewhere. I kept staring, kept looking at every angle to find the old me in there, as if I could tear the Marvin off of me if I found the right seam. All I got was ephemeral flashes of what I wanted to see. Is my self-conception so awful that I'm just not myself if I don't look pathetic? At least Ainsley's body was supposed to be different.
I heard a knock on the door. I stood up, steadied myself, feeling like a lumbering giant although I only had a few inches on Ainsley and weigh about the same as her. I opened the door to see Heather Flynn, just like the in the old photos she used to show me of her with her kids, except she's gently crying. She reached out for a much-needed hug, and I embraced her with a hollow strength no body I've occupied ever had. I wanted to cry, too, but it's not as easy as it used to be.
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